Organizations such as on-line retailers, network-based service providers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
Large scale computing systems, more commonly referred to as data centers, often store large amounts of data. Some implementations allow for data to be stored in multiple data centers, while other implementations do not collocate data amongst different data centers. Some implementations collocate data amongst multiple servers located within a single data center, while others store only a single copy of a piece of data on a single server. Colocation of data between data centers or servers may prevent loss of stored data due to a single event affecting a data center or server. Data centers may be coupled to other data centers by networks. Data from one server in one data center location may be replicated to another server in another data center location through a network connection between the data centers.
In some cases, a building management system (BMS) may manage certain operations for a data center's physical plant. For example, a BMS may be responsible for monitoring heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, power systems, and building safety systems such as fire and security. Typical BMS systems are separate from the computer systems in the data centers they manage. Some BMS systems may be simple electro-mechanical systems that relay events but do not perform logical operations in regard to detected events.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.